


The social conventions of trick or treating.

by Wineabout



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Halloween Costumes, I know it's August, Kid Fic, M/M, Malia Hale is in Preschool, Malia's mom is absent, Malia's mom is so far out of the picture, Single Dad Peter Hale, Stiles is a deer, halloween fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25981792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wineabout/pseuds/Wineabout
Summary: When the porch lights go off it's understood that the candy train is no longer leaving the station. But Stiles can make an exception for a Dilf and his cute kid, right?
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 64
Kudos: 603





	The social conventions of trick or treating.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a silly little fic that I sprinted through! I hope you like it!

Stiles snatches a Costco package of chocolate away from Scott and Isaac and dumps it into a candy corn coloured bowl on a chipped wooden table beside their front door.

“Help me with my zipper,” Erica calls from the top of the stairs and Boyd abandons a pile of wires and controllers in front of the television to follow her voice.

Halloween night was looking a lot different this year than it had any of the ones previous, since they’d graduated from college and decided there was no real reason not to keep living together. This year the night started earlier, and pregaming was just gaming because they all had work in the morning. But, the biggest difference was the fact that they were all whole ass adults, sharing a whole ass house, in a not college town that actually had dozens of tiny humans expecting candy.

The night was divided and planned. Before 9:00pm was for covert snatching from the trick or treater candy bowl and mario party while they all took turns crowding into the doorway to gawk at the costumed kidlets that came begging for the good stuff.

They, collectively, agreed to be the Full Bars House of their street and it was pretty awesome watching the big eyed sugar bugs cheering down their driveway with their bags and pillow cases being jostled at their adult counterparts.

After 9 though, was Party Time. When the house lights went off, a socially agreed upon signal that they were closed for the night, they had a four hour window to booze it up.

And 9:45 was definitely party time, the hard liquor came out of the cabinets and they’d turned on greasy music to wait for their non-roommate friends to show up. They were still playing mario party - but now they could do it sloshed.

Stiles was, short straw pulled, party mom for the night. In charge of setting up and not blacking out so he could guide people up stairs, hand out cups of water, and open the door.

The single tap to their doorbell has him pushing himself off the broken-in sofa, phone in hand as he sips a light beer and shouts about Erica crushing them all at Rumble Fishing. Kira is still settling in, waiting to get in on the next game and Allison said she’d be coming around eleven.

Stiles braces himself for Lydia or Jackson when he pulls the door open, his hand smoothing the white felt spots he’d glued on to his brown shirt while he uses the mirror by the key hooks to double check his deer face paint and the little antler stubs he’d glued on. His face drops and his hand hides his beer bottle behind his back as he looks at a tiny little girl standing on his door frame with a small Paw Patrol pillowcase held out in front of her.

“Trick or Treat!” Her voice is big and her grin is sharp enough to look a little threatening.

“Uh, right, okay,” Stiles scrambles, reaching over to find an empty bowl on the entry table. He leans to check, the switch is off, and the porch is dark. They’d even blown out their jack-o-lanterns! Stiles looks back and over, trying to level a look at whoever thought ignoring all social cues was okay, because whoever they were wouldn’t know he didn’t usually have a leg to stand on here.

The adult in question is upsettingly attractive and Stiles’ reprimanding glare melts into slack jawed staring.

The guy isn’t even in costume, he’s in a suit with a thick knit cardigan instead of a jacket. It’s mismatched and sort of cute.

“Trick. Or. Treat!” The little girl repeats, her nose scrunched up, and her face turning back to look at the DILF she brought with her.

“I know it’s late,” DILF says, smooth and low, head tilted to a speculating angle. “But you were clearly home and… we missed the prime hours.”

“Daddy was at work,” the little girl says and she puts in a little puff of a sigh, her eyes down cast and sad enough that Stiles actually feels his heart start to shatter in his chest.

“What did I say about doing that?” The man says with stern but soft exasperation, his daughter whips around with a scowl before she turns back and any evidence of upset is gone from her demeanour. She just looks a little impatient and serious.

“Do you have any candy?” She asks, prompting him before her father wraps a hand around her little shoulder, “please,” she tacks on.

“Oh, yeah, just let me go get some - we ran out up here,” Stiles picks up and shows off the empty candy bowl before he sets it down and leaves the door open to get a handful out of the kitchen from the party snacks.

“How’s this, huh?” Stiles says as he holds out the fistful of mini snickers to make up for their shortage of full bars. The little girl opens up her pillow case better and helpfully puts it under his hand.

“That’s… a lot,” she says, as she watches the little candy bars sprinkle into her sparse collection.

Stiles grins, because honestly this was the new second best part of halloween, and he looks up to the dad again. Eyes roaming just a little because he’s buzzed and frankly the man was a walking dream.

“Thank you,” DILF says as he knocks his fingers against his daughter’s spray painted gold hard hat.

With a pause to half shut the door against the spew of cursing coming out of his living room, Stiles finds himself partially on the porch. “Are you a… miner?” Stiles asks, smiling as he tries to make sense of the sparkles and the foam pickaxe.

“I’m a gold digger!”

Stiles feels himself choke like someone shoved cotton right into his lungs, a short wheeze shaking through his chest as he stares bug eyed at DILF. The man looks almost bored as he shrugs back.

“Like my mommy!”

“Oh my god,” Stiles coughs, and he is suddenly unsure if this is a terrible adult joke implemented using a child who won’t remember or if this guy is really just a huge asshole.

“She had suggested swimsuit model,” the DILF gestures to his kid, “I had suggested grifter - this was a compromise.”

“Huh,” Stiles says, articulate as he feels his face do something in the general direction of the pair of them.

“Daddy take a picture of me for mommy,” the little girl says as she fishes out some candy from her bag and quickly stuffs it back into Stiles’ hand. “Do it again for the picture,” she instructs firmly and cocks her hip, toe turned out and her smile beaming.

Not knowing what else to do, Stiles obeys, hand held out as he waits for the man to get out his phone and open up the camera. There’s a couple with flash and a couple without, the man purses his lips at them before he bends over into a crouch and lets his daughter pick which one to send. She supervises him uploading it into a text and Stiles can’t help but see the phone from this angle, can’t help but see that above that there’s a different sent picture, of this little girl and a cake.

“She says you look wonderful, and she wishes she were here,” the man says, carefully lifting his phone away from his daughter while she pokes her nose up to look at the screen. He deftly turns it away and slides it into his pocket.

If she were taller she’d have seen that her dad hadn’t gotten any texts.

Stiles blinks. He looks at the man again with a slightly more furrowed expression, and he’s caught snooping when he gets a slight shrug and a thin smile in return.

“You know - I don’t know how many people are going to be answering their doors,” Stiles says carefully as he looks down the street and sees how dark it is. “But there’s a bunch of us here - so… if you were to come back.” He flails his hand in a vague gesture. “Technically not double dipping?”

There’s a pause, the little girl is busy sniffing into her candy bag but her dad tilts his head with a look that has Stiles feeling thoroughly assessed. He nods, and tucks two fingers into the back of his daughter’s overall suspenders.

“Happy Halloween,” Stiles says and the little girl smiles and crows it back at him before they walk back off the porch. Stiles hesitates a moment before he turns their light back on and closes the door.

It’s fifteen minutes - long enough that Stiles has started to think they won’t be coming back, that there’s a knock on the door.

“Kira!” Stiles shouts, waving his arms.

She trots over immediately from her perch on the back of the couch, with a smile and a nod. In the waiting time, Stiles had made a roster for his friends and she’d been ready for her turn.

Kira pulls open the door, her fox ears and glued-on whiskers bouncing.

“Trick or treat!” The little girl says, just as robustly as the first time. Kira hands over some sour skittles packets.

“Cool pickaxe,” Kira says with a thumbs up and lets the little girl gently flick a whisker before the door closes again and Stiles goes to cue up Isaac in his Milo Fax costume.

They circulate, Lydia and Jackson arrive, they answer the door together dressed like SouthSide Serpents. Liam looks really confused but goes along with it too in his bloodied scrubs.

When everyone’s been tapped, the little girl’s pillowcase is half full and Stiles is back at the door. Hip cocked against the frame and a final few snickers at the ready to hand over.

“Are you having a party?” The little girl asks instead of her usual shtick, her head ducking to peer around his knee.

“Malia,” the dad sighs and he bonks his knuckles against her hat again.

“I’m just asking,” she defends on a yawn and Stiles smothers his own in response. “It sounds like games!”

Stiles looks behind himself and rubs a finger around the glued on rubber antler pieces on his forehead. His nose itching from the face paint. “Yeah but it’s... not as fun as trick or treating!”

She doesn’t seem convinced, her head weaving over to try to get a better look before she’s darting to the side and pressing her nose against their front window. Her father looks beyond exhausted.

“Malia, please, it’s time to go.”

“My Daddy said you’re pretty - can we come over and play games too?”

Stiles sputters, the dad groans softly and rubs a thumb between his brows before he’s snatching his daughter up and heaving her over his shoulder. “Thank you, Bambi, I appreciate what you’ve done for us.”

Bambi. Stiles flushes a little and raises his hand to wave it off, he’s interrupted by Malia raising her voice and wiggling.

“I have to pee! I need the bathroom!”

“Uh,” Stiles stalls as he looks at the pair of them and the dad sets her on her feet and looks down at her with his hands firmly on his hips. The seriousness of his face is too much. Too serious. Stiles giggles.

“I have to pee, really really bad,” Malia continues, her knees pressing together and her little hands making fists. She wiggles in place and her expression scrunches as she looks up.

“You can use ours…?” Stiles suggests with a wince and watches as the dad slowly crumbles and nods. He reaches down and picks her up though, half sitting her in his arms to, probably, keep her from touching everything as he follows Stiles into the house.

The music is loud, and the television is loud, and all of his friends get quiet as the man and Malia come striding behind Stiles to the main floor half bathroom.

“It’s - clean. I mean, no one’s, like” Stiles makes a vague boozy gesture and the dad stares at him with something vaguely amused or judgmental, maybe both. “Just - yeah.”

The bathroom door opens and closes and Stiles loiters in the hallway with a very disconcerted looking father. His shoulders are tight and he glares at the door that separates him from his kid.

“We don’t have anything dangerous in there - there’s no, like razors or medicine or anything. Just soap.” Stiles continues, trying to ease some of the weird vibe off the dad before he gasps and loses his balance on a back step when the guy turns to look at him.

“Thank you,” he says, calm, but his eyes are raking downward and back. “I’m Peter,” he holds out a hand.

It’s big, broad, firm, and shakes like he does a lot of hand shaking. Stiles is slow to let go and he fumbles with the hem of his shirt as he looks around and nods. “It’s no trouble - my dad worked when I was little. I get it.”

Peter hums, raking a hand through his hair as he looks over. “I didn’t set my career up to be a single parent,” he admits, and it’s smooth but vulnerable. “Her mother used to take most holidays at least.”

“The… gold digger,” Stiles intones and his brows have climbed up without permission but he can’t help it.

“Ah,” Peter snorts and leans his shoulders back on the wall, head tilted enough that he can look at Stiles. “It’s quite the profession, keeps her away - constant business trips.” He looks bored as he says it but there’s a tension around his jaw that Stiles can see, he’s standing so close.

Stiles turns, shoulder on the wall and his temple against it as he watches Peter. “That must suck,” he says, quietly before a clank from the bathroom has them both looking over. There’s a flush sound and then out of tune singing as the tap turns on.

“We make the best of things - Malia used to go on trips with her but she’s been coming home with interesting new skills and I…” Peter trails off as if realizing he’s talking to a stranger and he clears his throat and straightens up.

“Hey I’m not judging - I mean I was totally judging, it’s not cool to like - trash the parent that isn’t around. You gotta let the kids figure out who’s garbage for themselves.” Stiles thinks of Scott and his mouth purses a bit. “But I mean -” he shrugs.

Peter raises a brow and makes some sort of noise before he looks back to the door. “Oh, believe me, Malia thinks her mother is the cleverest buisness woman alive. I only sought full custody when she started using Malia in her cons.”

“Woah like... “ Stiles starts, eyes going round as he leans in again at the shock of that before the door opens and Malia is there with the front of her little gold shirt all wet.

“Tell Stiles the joke Mommy taught you,” Peter says, voice a little dull as he makes a gesture.

Malia grins, hopping up and down before she sobers up, her lip juts just a little, just enough and she looks absolutely forlorn. “My daddy really liked ponies, but he wouldn’t take me to see them with him. He went to live at the track.”

Stiles sucks in a breath through his teeth and looks at Peter.

“And the other one?” Peter asks.

“OH! Oh,” Malia gives herself a little shake and then she looks up at Stiles, eyes big and a little wet. “My daddy always came home stinky at night. Grown up juice made him grumpy.”

“What the fu- flap -cracker.” Stiles shifts between his feet and watches as Malia morphs back, grinning and giggling as she reaches up and pokes Peter in his unfairly flat belly.

“Stinky,” she repeats and laughs even louder when Peter makes a face at her.

“Enroll that kid in like - plays or something. A theater.. Company? Troupe? Hell just get her an agent oh my god,” Stiles continues as he raises a hand and almost forgets he’s got face paint on, he ruffles his hair to avoid smudging the make up.

Peter hums and taps her hardhat again, she reaches up and swats his hands away. “You washed your hands?”

“Yes, daddy, duh,” Malia says as she shows off her clean hands and wet clothes. Stiles peeks in and sees that the bathroom floor is soaked too. He reaches and plucks the towel off the rack and mops it up with his foot.

“Well, thank you Bambi,” Peter says and Stiles twists to look at him.

“It’s Stiles.”

“Stiles then,” Peter makes a vague gesture and plants one hand on his daughter’s shoulder, holding her candy bag in the other. Her pickaxe is tucked under his arm.

“Right,” Stiles points and starts walking them back to the door.

“Games!” Malia cries as they pass by and she squirms out of her father’s grasp to run for the sofa, pulling herself up between Scott and Isaac with zero care for the way either boy startles. They both move to catch her in case she tumbles off and also recoil away from the sudden invasion.

Her hardhat headbutts Scott in the chin.

“Malia!” Peter says, and he looks somewhere between mortified and like he’d expected exactly this. “You’re being very rude to Stiles and his friends.”

“Oh my god look at this tiny hat,” Erica coos as she reaches over and taps her long painted claw nails against the top of it. Malia tilts her head up and looks at her with a million watt smile.

“You know - this is as wild as it’s going to get around here - and you look like you could use a beer?” Stiles suggests quietly as he watches his friends take turns complimenting the tiny costume. The game paused.

Peter wavers, he looks around and must see what is just a hair away from a frat house and then looks back at his kid who has been given her entire own sofa cushion and a controller. There are costumed young adults sitting on the floor and each other to give the kid a bubble of space.

“I would love one,” Peter sighs and his shoulders relax just a little as Stiles grins back at him.

They all settle in, it doesn’t take long. The hard liquor is quietly put back into the cupboards, someone orders the pizza early, and the music is turned down and radio-edited. Malia is terrible at all of the Mini Games, too easily frustrated but she likes watching and announces herself on a team with whoever is winning.

Stiles finds himself next to Peter crushed into the sofa arm and over warm from shared body heat. He doesn’t think he’s imagining that Peter keeps looking over at him, and he definitely isn’t imagining the warm knuckles that press into the side of his leg.

The hand migrates, Stiles carefully presses into it, and then he’s got a big hot hand on his knee. Squeezing occasionally as Peter chats at him, and listens as Stiles chatters back.

Peter is a lawyer. He owns a firm in town. Malia was a surprise. She goes to preschool and spends a lot of time with her Uncle and Aunt who are currently out of town. Peter likes cars but he couldn’t keep the cheerio crumbs out of his Shelby so he’d bought a hatchback and pretends he’s into rally tuners now.

Stiles is fascinated, and when Malia falls asleep, they keep talking. The party fizzles out by twelve thirty, and everyone wanders upstairs to beds and prepared air mattresses.

It’s dim, and the music is quiet and Malia is snoring faintly against Peter’s shoulder when he says, “I’d like to see you again.”

“Oh,” Stiles blanks for a moment, a full systems reboot before he’s nodding vigorously but shallow with a startled smile cracking his half smeared face paint. “Yeah, that’d be.. Cool. Great.” He lifts a hand and shoots a thumbs up, feeling his cheeks flush and a slow wave of mortification like a distant tsunami.

Peter smirks, and he reaches up with his free hand to brush the backs of his fingers against Stiles’ cheek. “Thank you, my deer.”

“Oh my god, get out,” Stiles sighs in a hissy whisper as he leans away, laughing enough to shake the couch.

\---

1 Year Later

\---

“You’re doing it wrong,” Malia whines as she watches Stiles putting on highlighter in the bathroom mirror. She’s perched on the sink counter, wearing her tights and thermal long sleeve and holding her handmade crown. “Lydia said you sweep it.”

Stiles sticks his tongue out at her and continues to tap his golden fingertip across his cheek bones before he steps away and admires himself. His hair is gelled up a little and he has a crooked crown on his own head already. “Are you trying to say I don’t look princely?’

“You need the pink,” Malia picks up the small thing of blush and holds it out with her chin set. Stiles obliges and pinks up his cheeks before he steps away and fluffs out his billowy white shirt and adjusts the amulet they’d made out of clay together.

“There, what do you think? Ready to rescue me?”

“Yeah!”

Stiles helps her off the counter and slips the tailored paper bag over her outfit before Erica is hip checking him out of the way and taking over to start gelling and singeing Malia’s hair with some black eyeshadow.

“Is Peter on his way yet?” Erica asks as she works, looking over at Stiles through the mirror.

Malia huffs, her lip sticking out and her paper bag crinkling as she shrugs her shoulders. “Daddy’s working.”

Work emergency - Stiles had gotten the text. It had been disappointing but he’d gotten used to Peter’s sporadic schedule. “He’ll meet us, don’t worry.”

They finish getting ready and everyone crowds down into the front hallway of the Stilinksi-McCall-Lahey-Boyd-Reyes house.  
“Ready to go?” Stiles asks, as he picks up his tennis racket and Malia takes hold of the satin pillow case she’d insisted was suitable for a princess’s candy. It was a gift from Lydia to help her manage the wildness that was her morning ratsnest hair and would probably have to be replaced after being dragged around the neighborhood.

“Ready,” Malia says and she is the first one to stride out onto the porch. Erica comes along too, to help Stiles keep track of their tiny terror and they trick or treat down the block and back.

They’re still the full bars house on the block, Stiles is both pleased and disappointed to note. He’d hoped the neighborhood would step up their game.

Stiles ends up carrying the candy by the time they’re circling back to the house, they had planned on another few streets to hit but Malia’s shoes were dragging and she was walking slow.They agree to dump her candy at home and have a snack before they do the other side of the neighborhood.

When they make it back to the house, Peter’s car is on the driveway and Malia’s exhaustion is forgotten as she runs up the porch and lets herself in, squealing for her father.

“Thank god,” Erica says, and she’s looking down at the wicked heels on her boots as she crosses the threshold. “These weren’t made for sidewalks.” She peels out of them and walks her traditional catsuit into the living room to take a seat on Boyd and sabotage Scott’s Mario Kart placement.

“You made it,” Stiles says as Peter greets them by the door, tilting into a short kiss. Stiles reaches up to squeeze Peter’s shoulder as he laughs and takes in his big hot shot lawyer boyfriend in an ugly green long sleeve, scales sewn down the back, and a headband that sported to wiggly green protrusions that were either ears or horns - no one was sure.

“I did,” Peter says, smug and a little funny around the fangs he’d glued over his teeth. “What do you think?” He does a little sweep of himself, and preens when Maila declares him the best dragon.

“Take a picture!” Malia decides, as she takes her pillow case back from Stiles and strikes a pose by his leg.

“Alright,” Peter agrees and that old tension creeps back into his shoulders. They didn’t talk about Malia’s mom much anymore and Malia rarely asked to send pictures now.

“You too daddy,” Malia says, clearly exasperated, “and Stiles.” She further clarifies when Peter tries to hand the phone over to him.

“I can take it,” Kira offers as she comes over.

They pose, Malia in front of their legs looking brave, before she runs back over to Kira’s side to see the results. “This one,” she picks out, with a little finger on the phone.

“Alright,” Peter agrees again as he takes his phone and crouches down with her, selecting the photo.

“Send it to Grandpa John” Malia says firmly and she reaches up to hold on to her dad’s wrist. “He wanted to see our costumes.”

Stiles sways on his heels with a surprised grin that almost splits his lip. Peter is half frozen but he manages to send the text anyway.

“Yeah, he said we should stop by when we’re done with candy,” Stiles says. His entire chest area feels constricted, like he’s been wrapped by a boa constrictor made of love. It’s terrible and perfect.

“He says you look wonderful,” Peter says and he shows his daughter the screen. The text had come quickly and promised more candy when they stopped in.

Malia doesn’t want a snack anymore, but Stiles gives her some fruit gummies anyway and they all set out.

“The dragon and the prince don’t hold hands!” Malia complains and Peter gives Stiles a kiss on the cheek to be contrary.

Later they would play Mario Party. Malia would fall asleep on the couch. Peter would leave his fangs on the table. And they’d start talking about next year’s family costume.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like this year's family costume? I loved thinking up costumes. What would next year's be?


End file.
